from the say-that-again dept

We've written numerous times about outgoing EU Digital Commissioner Neelie Kroes. While we don't always agree with her, we definitely agree with her more often than not. She's now given quite a speech about the importance of digital innovation and highlighting how legacy industries, fearful of change, are seeking to hold it back. The whole thing is worth reading, but here's a key part. After talking about how Europe used to dominate in innovation, it's since fallen behind both the US and Asia.

When we looked over the last 30 years of the exhibit, we saw Asian innovation taking over Europe and rivalling the US. Europe was fading into the background.

And then I am confronted with the statistics. For every Sweden or UK or Netherlands (who have 4G and where nearly everyone is online), we also have a Germany and Italy and the rest of Europe. There fast broadband infrastructure and skills are average at best, sometimes non-existent.

We have a problem today of two Europes: a digital Europe and an analogue Europe. Of digital mind-sets and analogue mind-sets.

These are two Europes that rarely talk to each other. Two Europes that hold back all of Europe because they are not in sync.

There is a Europe that is full of energy and digital ideas. We have a growing start-up scene with thousands of people who are the smartest in the world at what they do. From Skype to Spotify to SAP, from Rovio to Booking.com to Campus Party. We have a young generation that uses their digital devices and apps and new ways of building communities and businesses.

This Europe is optimistic. This is the Europe where half of new jobs come from – the ICT-enabled jobs. This Europe is mobile and flexible. This Europe hates barriers and looks for new opportunities. This is the Europe that likes innovation – and is happy to use Uber and Air BnB.

But there is a second Europe. It is a Europe that is afraid of this digital future. They worry about where the new middle class jobs will come from. They don’t want to jump off what they see as a digital cliff. They like the comforting idea of putting up walls; to many people it makes sense to restrict Americans and Asians and protect against their innovations. They tend to be older. They tend to want strong regulations protecting what they know, instead of taking a chance on what they don’t know.

And the big question she asks, is from which of those two Europes will the EUs leaders come from?

It comes down to this question: is Europe’s leadership class willing to be excited about innovation and start-ups? Or is Europe going to be exhausted by using up its energy safeguarding vested interests, and holding up ancient barriers?

We need to ask if we can reinvent ourselves. And if we are willing to be led to a digital renaissance based on an open mindset and a belief that we can be the best if we want to be.

She goes on to admit the mistakes that she's made, but also asks that companies need to admit to their own mistakes as well. She calls out European companies for resisting change and resisting entrepreneurship. She calls out American companies for "trusting the government too much" and not valuing customers' privacy enough.

It's a good speech, well worth reading. Even if we didn't always agree with Kroes, in our own experiences, she was (unlike many politicians) not just exceptionally thoughtful on these matters, but was also always willing to listen to, and take into account, the views of those who disagreed with her. Hopefully, those who are replacing her will similarly recognize the importance of innovation as well.

from the unprecedented-alliance dept

Last month, the European Commission refused to accept a request to allow an official EU-wide petition called a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) to take place. This was a curiously maladroit move by the Commission: it would have been easy to allow the petition against TAFTA/TTIP and CETA to proceed, thank the organizers once it was completed, file it away somewhere and then ignore it. Instead, by refusing to allow it to take place, the European Commission has highlighted in a dramatic manner the deeply undemocratic way in which so-called trade agreements are conducted.

On October 11, 2014, tens of thousands of people and hundreds of organisations in 21 countries are organising actions to reclaim democracy, and stop the negotiations on three far-reaching trade agreements: the EU-US deal (TTIP), the EU-Canada deal (CETA) and the trade in services deal (TiSA).

This decentralised European Day of Action -- consisting of over 300 actions, marches, meetings and flash mobs -- is being organised by an unprecedented alliance of civil society groups and individuals, social movements, trade unions, rights defenders, farmers and grassroots activist groups.

Some 400 activist groups marched all over Europe on Saturday (11 October) in protest against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), as the EU-US trade deal crystallises opposition to a wide variety of issues -- from shale gas to corporate finance.

That last point is important. Euractiv.com goes on to explain:

The opposition to TTIP has many faces however, and seems to embody a wide variety of concerns.
In France, many small demonstrations focused on opposition to shale gas, especially in the South of France, while in Berlin protesters were worried that TTIP would weaken the powers of the German regions, or Länders.

Potentially, that could make the European opposition to TAFTA/TTIP even broader-based than it was to ACTA, where people were largely concerned about a single issue -- digital rights. And just as the ACTA demonstrations started off small scale, but grew to hundreds of thousands of people before ACTA was rejected by the European Parliament, so the anti-TTIP movement in Europe could easily swell larger still. Especially if the European Commission continues to conduct the negotiations in secret and without any input from its citizens.

from the this-could-be-important dept

Lawyer Martin Husovec has a post detailing an important case that has been referred to the EU Court of Justice, which could have a tremendous impact on legal liability for those who offer open WiFi in the European Union. It's tough to improve on Martin's summary of the post, so here it is:

The case arose between an entrepreneur selling light and audio systems who is also a member of the German Pirate Party and record label. The entrepreneur operates an open and free of charge WiFi in his store. He uses the WiFi sometimes as a tool for advertising of his store (preloaded home page points to his shop and name of the network bears its name) and sometimes to agitate for his political views (pointing to particular websites such as data protection campaigns, etc.). After receiving a letter informing him about a copyright infringement allegedly committed via his hot-spot, the entrepreneur unusually sued the right holder pursuing the negative declaratory action. The right holder as a defendant later counter-claimed asking for damages, injunctive relief and pre-trail costs as well as court fees under the above mentioned doctrine of BGH.

The referring court is hesitant whether mere conduit safe harbour of Article 12 allows especially for injunctive relief on which the German concept of Stoererhaftung is based. It points to similar cases before the Hamburg court (Case No. 25b C 431/13 and Case No. 25b C 924/13) that recently denied such claims arguing that mere conduit safe harbour prevents them. The court comes to conclusion that the plaintiff did not infringe the rights himself, and thus is considering what kind of measures can be imposed on a WiFi operator such as defendant. It is very symptomatic to German case-law on injunctive relief that the Munich court does not even mention applicability of Article 8(3) InfoSoc in this case. Despite the fact that its case is clearly about its local transposition and European limits.

He then digs deep into the specific questions raised by the court, and I recommend reading his detailed thoughts and explanations of what the different questions likely mean and the possible risks from different outcomes. The end result, though is that either some basic safe harbors could be established for those offering WiFi (as is mostly the case here in the US), or the court can continue to drag the EU in the other direction, putting often draconian liability and regulations on those who merely offer open WiFi. Martin "hopes" the court won't add to the burdens of open WiFi operators by increasing liability and rules. However, he also notes that it's a chance for the court to actually protect and encourage free WiFi by clearing up that merely offering it shouldn't make one liable for the actions on that network. But, he points out:

In order this to happen, somebody should explain the court the innovative potential and social use of open WiFis beyond mere household use, which most of the judges are [only] familiar with.

In other words, this is an important case to watch for those of us who believe in the value and importance of open WiFi.

from the no-messing-around dept

Back in February, we wrote about the European Union office of Ombudsman, whose job is to hold the EU administration to account, telling the European Parliament to try harder in its efforts to bring some transparency to the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations. A few months later, the Ombudsman took on the Council of the European Union and the European Commission, urging them to publish more TTIP documents:

The European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, has called on the Council of the European Union to publish the EU negotiating directives for the on-going Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations with the US. She has also proposed to the European Commission a range of practical measures to enable timely public access to TTIP documents, and to details of meetings with stakeholders. She has opened investigations involving both institutions.

Emily O'Reilly explained: "The EU institutions have made a considerable effort to promote transparency and public participation concerning TTIP. I agree that not all negotiating documents can be published at this stage, there needs to be room to negotiate. However, concerns have been raised about key documents not being disclosed, about delays, and about the alleged granting of privileged access to TTIP documents to certain stakeholders. Given the significant public interest and the potential impact of TTIP on the lives of citizens, I am urging both these EU institutions to step up their proactive transparency policy."

On 25 June 2013, the complainant, a German journalist, asked the Commission for access to documents in its possession in connection with the surveillance of the internet by UK state agencies (mainly the intelligence service 'Government Communications Headquarters', otherwise known as 'GCHQ'), in accordance with EU rules on access to documents.

It's a fairly involved story, well explained by the Ombudsman in her recommendation. One element concerns a letter written by the UK Foreign Secretary. Here's what happened:

The Commission's position is, in essence, that disclosure could negatively impact on the atmosphere of confidence between itself and the Member state concerned, as the EU courts acknowledged in the Petrie and Technische Glaswerke cases. However, the Commission itself admitted that the Member State concerned, that is to say, the United Kingdom, agreed to the disclosure of the said letter. In these circumstances, the Ombudsman is at a loss to understand how the disclosure of this letter could have the negative consequences to which the Commission has referred. In the Ombudsman's view, it is thus clear that the Commission cannot invoke the above-mentioned general presumption in order to refuse to grant access to this letter.

That is, the Commission persisted in claiming that releasing the letter in question would affect the relations with the UK, even though the UK had said that it wouldn't. Here, the Ombudsman rightly calls out the ridiculous position that the Commission has taken. Perhaps more important for the future is the second element of her recommendations:

The Commission should grant access to all the other documents requested by the complainant concerning the mass surveillance of the internet by UK state agencies, or properly justify why, in its view, disclosure has to be refused.

That's a fine slap on the wrist for the Commission, which is being told to follow the rules here -- either by releasing the documents, or by giving a proper reason why not. The details of the case don't really matter; what's important is that O'Reilly is emerging as a powerful force for transparency within the European Union, seriously trying to hold the powerful to account. As one of the few people daring to do that, she deserves the thanks of not just the European public but also of all those elsewhere affected by EU policies.

from the seems-troubling dept

There were reports a few weeks ago that the European Commission has reopened its antitrust investigation into Google. The main issue is how Google promotes certain (usually internal) results in so-called "answer boxes" in a way that may hurt other sites. We've been skeptical of the idea of European bureaucrats deciding what Google's search results should look like, but earlier this year, it appeared that a settlement had been reached in which Google would point to competitors' results in some cases.

Against this backdrop, a few organizations, led by Yelp and TripAdvisor have created a somewhat fascinating site and tool called Focus On The User -- a play on Google's own core philosophy of "focus on the user and all else will follow." The site makes a very compelling argument that when Google is returning opinions (i.e., ratings) rather than factual answers, that it could do a much better job than just pointing to results from Google+. That is, if you do a search on "best restaurants in San Francisco" Google will show you results as rated by Google+ user reviews.

The Focus on the User site shows that rather than just relying on Google's own data, users would benefit greatly if Google used its own search algorithm to pull in results from reviews elsewhere. In short, where you might see a box up top with seven to ten reviews (all linking to Google pages), Yelp and TripAdvisor are arguing that if you just used Google's "organic" search algorithm to find the most relevant review pages, consumers get a much better experience. And they have a fair amount of data to back that up, showing a greater number of clicks in such a box (which you can test yourself via the site).

As noted above, the results are compelling. Using Google's own algorithm to rank all possible reviews seems like a pretty smart way of doing things, and likely to give better results than just using Google's (much more limited) database of reviews. But here's the thing: while I completely agree that this is how Google should offer up reviews in response to "opinion" type questions, I still am troubled by the idea that this should be dictated by government bureaucrats. Frankly, I'm kind of surprised this isn't the way Google operates, and it's a bit disappointing that the company doesn't just jump on this as a solution voluntarily, rather than dragging it out and having the bureaucrats force it upon them.

So while the site is fascinating, and the case is compelling, it still has this problem of getting into a very touchy territory where we're expecting government's to design the results of search engines. It seems like Yelp, TripAdvisor and others can make the case to Google and the public directly that this is a better way to do things, rather than having the government try to order Google to use it.

from the blaming-the-victims dept

We recently wrote about the hearing of Cecilia Malmström, likely to be the next trade commissioner for the European Union. On the same day, Günther Oettinger, the candidate for the post responsible for "digital economy and society," was also quizzed by members of the European Parliament. His replies were mostly pretty staid -- previously, he was the energy commissioner, and seemed more at home among gas and oil pipes than the series of tubes that go to make up the Internet -- but one comment has drawn much criticism, as the Guardian reports here:

Former EU energy commissioner Günther Oettinger, 61, is used to accusations that he is more digitally naïve than digitally native by now. But at a hearing in front of the European parliament, the EU’s next commissioner designate for digital economy and society raised some serious questions about his suitability.

During a three-hour grilling by MEPs in Brussels, Oettinger said it would not be his job to protect stars "stupid enough to take a nude photo of themselves and put it online” -- seemingly unaware that the recent leak of celebrities’ nude photographs had come about as a result of a targeted hacking attack.

Let's recap the incident he's referring to: Recently, private photos of female celebrities were published against their will. Far from what Oettinger is suggesting, they didn't "put the photos online". The most likely sources of the photos were cloud-based phone backups. The women might not even have been aware of the backups' existence, since they are created automatically in the background on many phones. It appears that attackers were able to break their encryption due to security failures, like a service allowing an unlimited number of different passwords to be tried out in rapid succession or granting access after posing "security questions" with guessable or obtainable answers. One of the victims was underage when the published photos were taken.

If you manage to look beyond the tabloid celebrity/sex angle, the statement is unbelievable: The person applying to be in charge of shoring up trust in the internet so that Europeans do more business online just victim-blamed people whose personal data was accessed and spread without authorization. He placed the moral blame for that crime squarely on the victims rather than the perpetrators.

Although that incident caught people's attention, there were plenty of other things to be worried about in Oettinger's replies. Aside from an evident lack of familiarity with the digital world -- something that can be rectified, one hopes, given time and good advisers -- there were indications that he is likely to see the Internet through an industrial prism, with its users little more than passive consumers of products sold by online businesses. Here, for example, is Euractiv's translation of his reply to a question about the major reform of copyright in the EU, which is one of the key tasks facing him if he is appointed:

"I stand for reliable protection of copyright," Oettinger said.

"We must adequately protect the creator, so these creators will still exist tomorrow. On the other hand, users in the digital world are interested in gaining access to all cultural products." This requires finding a delicate balance, Oettinger said.

"I will commit to working on a draft law, finding a balance for European copyright law in the context of the digital world," the Commissioner designate said.

Pretty generic stuff, with no hint that Internet users might themselves be creators of materials that they are happy to share, without needing to worry about "protection." That suggests Oettinger's idea of "balance" is likely to be skewed heavily in favor of the copyright industry. In other words, a rare opportunity to move on the debate about copyright in the digital world by looking at things from a fresh viewpoint, and trying out some new ideas, has almost certainly been squandered.

from the that's-awkward dept

As we've noted, the EU Data Protection Regulation has seen some of the fiercest lobbying in the history of the European Union. That's because key US Internet companies are worried that stricter controls on taking personal data out of the EU might adversely affect their business models, which are largely based on using that data quite freely.

The human rights organization Access has been following this closely, and has made several freedom of information requests to both the US and EU authorities in an attempt to find out who exactly has been trying to weaken the Regulation and how. A recent Access blog post revealed that as well as many heavily-redacted documents, one interesting email was provided in its entirety:

The email is between staff working at the [National Telecommunications and Information Administration] of the [US] Department of Commerce. The email makes reference to the drafting of one of the lobby documents the Obama administration produced to influence the outcome of the data protection reform package (read EDRi’s analysis on the paper here). This is one of the many documents which likely contributed to a diluting of the Data Protection Regulation even before the proposal had been made public.

The email indicates that Commissioner Malmström and/or her cabinet had been sharing information with the U.S. Mission in the E.U., including appropriate times to publish the lobby document, information about internal politics within the Commission, and concerns about how the proposal for a Data Protection Directive could conflict with E.U. and U.S. Law Enforcement interests.

That's pretty shocking since, if true, it means that one of the most important departments of the European Commission, headed by the senior politician Cecilia Malmström, was actively working to weaken the proposed Regulation. According to Access:

For many who have been following the E.U. privacy reform debate closely, this trans-Atlantic cooperation was an open secret. However, until now, it has not been possible to demonstrate DG [Directorate-General] Home's maneuvers. Beyond the implications for the Data Protection Reform, the contents of the acquired document give cause for concern about Ms. Malmström’s suitability for leading EU negotiations with the USA on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), given that she has recently been chosen E.U. Commissioner-designate for Trade.

That last comment refers to the fact that Malmström, the current head of the department involved, DG Home, and thus with ultimate responsibility for her staff's actions, has been proposed as the new EU commissioner for trade, who would therefore take over the negotiation of TAFTA/TTIP from Karel De Gucht. Naturally, the possibility that her department was colluding with the US side to undermine data protection in the EU would not inspire confidence in her for this new role.

As part of her appointment process as trade commissioner, Malmström was questioned by Members of the European Parliament during a three-hour session on Monday. As well as being asked about key issues like corporate sovereignty -- she said that she won't take it out of CETA, but doesn't exclude the possibility of removing ISDS from TTIP -- she was also challenged on the allegations from Access, and replied as follows:

I have read those allegations; I totally reject them. I have always defended the European data protection proposals internally and externally. These are based on misconception or on lies and I think I have shown to this Parliament and other committees that I can negotiate with the United States tough agreements, where we stand up for European values, and I will certainly continue to do so. So I totally reject false allegations based on alleged leaked emails. I have always stood up for this formally, publicly and in all informal discussions.

You have systematically refused to comment on "these allegations" from "a leaked email". The document in question, referenced as "JN 656", is neither an allegation nor a leak. It was legally acquired by Access on July 14, 2014, through a freedom of information request.

Access then went on:

The clear implication of your statement is that the email in question is not genuine. We therefore demand an immediate clarification: Are you accusing Access or the US Department of Commerce of having falsified a document?

Although it seems likely that Malmström will be confirmed as the new trade commissioner, it also looks like this story will rumble on for a while yet (pdf).

from the forward-to-the-past dept

The political machine of the European Union is undergoing a major makeover. Elections recently took place for Members of the European Parliament, bringing in many new faces. Later this year, a new array of Commissioners will take up jobs in the European Commission. The third main player in the EU political system is the Council of the European Union, a more anonymous kind of body, which consists of a varying group of ministers from the 28 member states who meet to discuss key areas. It may be shadowy, but can provide important hints about what is happening behind the scenes in Brussels. For example, the Presidency of the Council, currently held by Italy (EU countries take it in turns), has just presented a "paper aimed at structuring the exchange of views on IPR enforcement" (pdf). It notes that the European Commission carried out a consultation on copyright recently, and comments that:

The current legislative framework is not necessarily fit for purpose in the digital environment.

That's undoubtedly true, as the public's massive response to the consultation confirmed. Sadly, though, the paper's "solutions" to updating copyright are basically straight out of the infamous Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) we thought had been killed off in 2012. Here are the paper's first suggestions for how things could be updated and improved:

Clarify which tools are available to identify IPR infringers: clarify the retention and disclosure of personal data by intermediaries, in order to improve identification in case of commercial scale infringements while guaranteeing the protection of fundamental rights of individuals (thus avoiding abuses); clarify to what extent due diligence obligations such as « know your customer » are or should be imposed on intermediaries.

As that indicates, there is the troubling suggestion that the metadata retained by ISPs and telecoms in the EU -- data that we were assured had to be kept, but only for use in the fight against terrorism -- might be handy for tracking down people who make unauthorized copies of copyrighted material. After all, if it's sitting there, why not use it? "In case of commercial scale infringements" is just a fig leaf. For ACTA, which the European Commission helped draft, the following dangerously broad definition of the term (pdf) was used:

Acts carried out on a commercial scale include at least those carried out as commercial activities for direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage.

"Indirect economic or commercial advantage" includes just about everything. In that quoted section above, there's also a wonderful new euphemism for using intermediary liability to turn ISPs into the copyright police: "know your customers." The second suggestion builds on that idea:

Improve the efficiency of actions to stop IPR infringements through better involvement of intermediaries: clarify the notion of intermediary in the context of Directive 2004/48 (are payment and advertising service providers included ?), clarify the conditions for imposing injunctions on them (to what extent should intermediaries be involved in the infringement ?), clarify what type of injunction can be imposed on intermediaries (which measures ? should priority be given to the « follow the money principle » to deprive commercial scale infringers of the revenue flows that draw them into such activities?); clarify the duration of injunctions and the possibility of obtaining cross-border or even pan-European injunctions.

"Better involvement of intermediaries" - that's a close cousin of a phrase in ACTA:

Promote cooperative efforts within the business community to effectively address trademark and copyright or related rights infringement

Suggestion three in the new paper is as follows:

Improve the accessibility of judicial systems, in particular for SMEs: introduce fast track procedures for small claims.

Maybe "fast track" means this idea from ACTA:

Each Party shall provide that its judicial authorities have the authority to adopt provisional measures inaudita altera parte where appropriate

Translated into English, that means allowing a court hearing without bothering to give the accused a chance to defend themselves -- that would certainly save time. Finally, we have this:

Clarify the allocation of damages: increase the predictability of the amounts allocated and ensure that damages awarded are sufficient to cover the prejudice suffered

Again, that seems to be a throwback to another section of ACTA:

In determining the amount of damages for infringement of intellectual property rights, a Party’s judicial authorities shall have the authority to consider, inter alia, any legitimate measure of value the right holder submits, which may include lost profits, the value of the infringed goods or services measured by the market price, or the suggested retail price.

Although the phrasing may be a little different, it's striking how the same old bad ideas keep on turning up. It will be interesting to see how the new European Commission takes this forward -- although maybe "backward" would be a better description of where it is going.

from the balancing-the-books dept

Recently, Techdirt has reported on a number of decisions about copyright being handed down by the European Union's highest court, the EU Court of Justice (EUCJ). Here's another, this time involving the digitization of books (pdf). The case concerned a university library in Germany that wanted to digitize a book that it had purchased so as to be able to make it available electronically to its visitors. The publishing house tried to sell it an e-book of the work concerned that could be used for this purpose, but the library refused. Because it involved the EU Copyright Directive, the case was referred by the Federal Court of Justice in Germany to the EUCJ, which has now released the following decision:

the Court holds, first of all, that, even if the rightholder offers to a library the possibility of concluding licencing agreements for the use of his works on appropriate terms, the library may avail itself of the exception [permitted by the EU Copyright Directive] provided for in favour of dedicated terminals;
otherwise, the library could not realise its core mission or promote the public interest in promoting research and private study.

Furthermore:

the Court finds that the directive does not prevent Member States from granting libraries the right to digitise the books from their collections, if it becomes necessary, for the purpose of research or private study, to make those works available to individuals by dedicated terminals. The right of libraries to communicate, by dedicated terminals, the works they hold in their collections would risk being rendered largely meaningless, or indeed ineffective, if they
did not have an ancillary right to digitise the works in question.

In other words, since the EU Copyright Directive permits libraries to be given a right to use dedicated terminals to display works they already own, that would be meaningless if they couldn't digitize those works first. Although that's an eminently sane and reasonable result, copyright maximalists will doubtless complain about the erosion of their "rights", since they seem to take it as axiomatic that every new use of material under copyright should result in a payment to them. Happily, once more the EUCJ seems to be trying to bring a little more balance to this most unbalanced of fields.

from the something-rotten-in-the-state-of-Europe dept

One of the most glaring problems with TAFTA/TTIP is the lack of input from the public in whose name it is being negotiated. The great interest in providing feedback on the agreement can be seen from the one occasion when it was possible to voice an opinion -- the European Commission's consultation on the inclusion of a corporate sovereignty chapter. And yet, even though an unprecedented 150,000 responses were received -- the vast majority of which were against any kind of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) measures -- a top European politician recently announced that there are no plans to take ISDS out of CETA, the almost-finished trade agreement between the EU and Canada that represents a kind of warm-up for TAFTA/TTIP.

Since the European Commission refuses to take into account the public's views directly, people have turned to another mechanism to make their voices heard: a special kind of EU-wide petition called a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI). If sufficient signatures are obtained from around the EU, the European Commission is obliged to respond, but the bar to make that happen is set quite high:

One million signatures must be gathered within one year. Additionally, in seven EU states a specific minimum of supporters must be achieved, e.g. 72,000 signatures in Germany, 55,500 in France, or 54,750 in the United Kingdom. If the initiative succeeds in doing this, then the EU Commission organises a hearing in the EU Parliament, and concerns itself with the matter. The ECI citizen's committee then finally receives a written response from the Commission. If the Commission decides to present a legal act, then this is is passed on to the European Council and to the European Parliament.

We invite the European Commission to recommend to the Council to repeal the negotiating mandate for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and not to conclude the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

"Now the battle really begins," said Michael Efler, contact person of the ECI, which currently represents almost 230 organizations from 21 EU countries. "The rejection of the ECI only confirms the Commission's strategy to exclude citizens and parliaments from the TTIP and CETA negotiations. Instead of paying attention to citizens, it is just lobbyists that are being listened to."

The group offered some comments on the contrived legalistic justification offered by the European Commission for refusing to allow the petition to proceed. For example, the Commission claimed that the negotiating mandates for both TTIP and CETA were not "legal acts", as required for a petition, but "internal preparatory acts". Efler says:

"If the Commission’s legal opinion had any substance, then in plain English this would mean that Europe's population is excluded from participation in the development of any kind of international agreements -- information that is as frightening as it is scandalous."

The European Commission also tried to claim that it couldn't make "negative ratification proposals", but the Stop TTIP group points out:

"this means that citizens can only applaud international negotiations carried out by the Commission, but not criticize them,” said Efler.

There is something rotten in the state of Europe when an unelected, unaccountable EU body can glibly inform millions of us that we no longer have the right to question its most dangerous and unpopular policies.

...

The ruling is a slap in the face for the 230 civil society organisations from across Europe that have lined up behind the initiative, and the millions of European citizens they represent. The ECI is the only vehicle available to us to challenge the shadowy bureaucrats of the European Commission. Now even this seems to be too much scrutiny for them.